Karl Marx’s London tomb vandalized in ‘brutal’ hammer attack

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The marble plaque at the foot of the grave of Karl Marx shows damage from a vandal's attack on the German revolutionary philosopher's grave site in Highgate Cemetery in London on Feb. 5. (Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images)

LONDON — An unknown vandal, with blows from a blunt metal object, attacked the tomb of Karl Marx — scarring the engraved name and dates of the author of “The Communist Manifesto,” who is buried in the spooky Victorian-era cemetery at Highgate.

The caretakers at the burial ground are not sure when the attack occurred.

Sometime in the last few days, they believe.

The police have been alerted, but there are no suspects and no CCTV surveillance footage. They have no idea why the vandal struck, except one assumes, an extreme dislike of communism, or Marx’s writings on capitalism and class struggle?

“It’s all rather disturbing,” said Ian Dungavell, chief executive of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust.

Dungavell told The Washington Post the marble marker is damaged. What stands out, he said, “is the very targeted nature of the act and the brutality of it. It was done with great violence. Someone hitting the stone again and again and again. On the name Marx. Who is doing that?”

The caretaker called the vandalism “a very inappropriate way to make a political point.”

He would have preferred the person wield a pen and write a pamphlet, or stage a lively debate on Twitter, rather than take out his or her aggression on a Grade-1 Listed Monument.

Marx is described by the cemetery trust today as “our most famous resident,” in a much-visited boneyard that exudes ivy-covered, romantic decay, with narrow paths lined with tilting mossy stones — and plenty of cherubim and angels, crypts and crosses. It is very goth.

Alongside the author of “Das Kapital” are planted a Who’s Who of major and minor Victorian celebs, such as author George Eliot and inventor William Friese-Greene.

Marx arrived in London in 1849 and spent the remaining years of his life writing his magnum opus “Das Kapital” and many other works, lecturing, thinking, debating and squabbling with militant revolutionaries. He lived very humbly, supported by his friend Friedrich Engels. Marx died in 1883 at 63 and was originally buried in a simple plot beside his wife, Jenny.

In 1954, Marx was “moved up the hill,” during the height of the Cold War, by the Communist Party of Great Britain, which erected a plinth, inscribed with the words “Workers of All Lands — Unite.” This is topped with a bronze bust, and below is the original grave marker.

Over the years, the tomb has been repeatedly struck by vandals. Typically, Dungavell said, someone splashes paint or scrawls a bit of graffiti. In the 1970s, an unknown hothead wanted to blow up the monument. They sawed off Marx’s nose while probably trying to work a charge into the cast of his head. They gave up and instead detonated a device at the foot of the plinth.

In the latest attack, Dungavell said someone could have sneaked into the cemetery at night to beat on the tomb with the rusty hammer — or more likely they paid the $5 entrance fee and took advantage of a cold, rainy afternoon, when few visitors are around, to strike.

The cemetery is sprawling. Visitors sometimes are interrupted having sex or posing nude or using drugs.

Dungavell said they will endeavor to make repairs to the Marx marker, but there is only so much they can do.

“It will show the scars of age,” he said. Only now, more so.

Visitors walk by the tomb of German revolutionary philosopher Karl Marx, a Grade I-listed monument, in Highgate Cemetery in north London on Feb. 5. A vandal recently smashed and defaced the marble plaque with the names of Marx and his family that was set in the larger plinth that makes up the bulk of the monument. (Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images)